Pruning: Crown Restoration

Many trees once topped or chainsawed in overly agressive ways lose their natural healthy shape and instead send up stump sprouts / suckers which makes the tree vulnerable to being damaged in windstorms.

Too often tree pruners recommend removing these trees entirely, yet over the course of several years these trees can be trained back to a healthy shape.

The photos of this Russian Wing Nut tree were taken in the second year of rehabilitation just before the last of the tall stump sprouts were cut.

The first year 1/3 of the tallest stump sprouts / suckers were removed at their base, as well as topped at varying heights.

In the second year the remaining stump sprouts / suckers were removed at their base, as well as topped at varying heights.

By the third year only a light pruning of sprout growth was neccesary as a more natural shaped canopy is now mostly shading out the trees ability to grow aggressive stump sprouts / suckers.

Originally nearly every sprout on every branch was a sucker sprout that reached up to a structurally challenged height of sixty feet… Now the tree at it’s center reaches 50 feet while all the surrounding branches reach up to a range form 45-20 feet in height.